UNITED KINGDOM

World War I

General

A - D

Andrew, Christopher. "The Mobilization of British Intelligence in the Two World Wars." In Mobilization for Total War: The Canadian, American and British Experience 1914-1918, 1939-1945, ed. N.F. Dreiszinger, 87-101. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 1981.

Aston, George G. [Sir] Secret Service. London: Faber & Faber, 1930. New York: Cosmopolitan, 1930.

Beach, Jim. "Origins of the Special Intelligence Relationship? Anglo-American Intelligence Co-operation on the Western Front, 1917-18." Intelligence and National Security 22, no. 2 (Apr. 2007): 229-249.

The author suggests that the World War I "interaction between the intelligence staffs of the British and American Expeditionary Forces was a significant precursor to the emergence of the later relationship."

Beesly, Patrick. Room 40: British Naval Intelligence, 1914-18. London/New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

Boghardt, Thomas. "A German Spy? New Evidence on Baron Louis von Horst." Journal of Intelligence History 1, no. 2 (Winter 2001). [http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/previous. html]

From abstract: In August 1914, Scotland Yard detectives "apprehended a German-American businessman, Baron Louis von Horst. Charged with espionage on behalf of the German government, von Horst was detained in various detention camps..., dispossessed, and expelled from Britain as an 'undesirable alien' in 1919.... [N]ew documentary evidence proves ... that Sir Basil Thomson, director of the Special Branch, cleverly and ruthlessly used the baron as a tool to advance his own career. Von Horst, losing his wealth and health in the course of his almost 5-year detention, was unjustly branded a 'German spy.'"

Boghardt, Thomas. Spies of the Kaiser: German Covert Operations in Great Britain during the First World War. London: Palgrave in conjunction with St. Anthony's College, Oxford, 2004.

Watt, I&NS 20.3 (Sep 2005), calls this work "a perfectly acceptable if limited study of German naval intelligence activities in Britain before and after" World War I. The author has put together "a coherent and credible picture from the surviving archives in both Britain and Germany." However, "there is nothing about the German army intelligence organization." Boghardt, I&NS 21.3 (Jun. 2006), takes exception to some of Watt's comments and, specifically, cites Walter Nicolai as stating that "German prewar espionage in Britain was the exclusive preserve of naval intelligence."

According to Peake, Studies 49.3 (2005), the auther is the first to write about the German Admiralty's naval intelligence department (designated “N” and formed in 1901). When war came, "all the important agents were identified and arrested or neutralized." In the end, the unit "never posed a serious threat to British security." This book "provides summaries of the major wartime cases of 'N' espionage operations in Great Britain and discusses several that involved agents operating in the United States." Rielage, NIPQ 22.4 (Sep. 2006), sees Spies of the Kaiser as "a fascinating and exceptionally well-documented work."

Brownrigg, Douglas [Admiral Sir]. Indiscretions of the Naval Censor. New York: Doran, 1920. London: Cassell, 1920.

Bywater, Hector C., and H.C. Ferraby. Strange Intelligence: Memoirs of Naval Secret Service. London: Constable, 1931. New York: Richard R. Smith, 1931.

Cockerill, George [Sir]. What Fools We Were. London: Hutchinson, 1944.

Crowley, Aleister. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autobiography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1969.

See Richard B. Spence, "Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowly and British Intelligence in America, 1914-1918," International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 13, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 359-371, for a discussion of Crowley's role as a British agent.

Dockrill, Michael, and David French, eds. Strategy and Intelligence: British Policy during the First World War. London: Hambledon, 1995.

 

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